


Salt

by ChecktheHolonet



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Jedi Training, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 08:50:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14185311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChecktheHolonet/pseuds/ChecktheHolonet
Summary: In some ways, Kylo knew, Ben Solo drowned that night. Swept out to sea never to return.





	Salt

 

He remembers the taste of the salt of the sea. Deeply mineral, crystalline-sharp and acidic; drawing moisture from his mouth as he rolled it across his tongue. Tiny pinpricks seared his face as the damp wind whipped across his brow, camouflaging silvery tears that poured from eyes half-closed even in darkness. He’d run to the ocean, away from the jeering words of his fellow padawans, away from the critical eye of his uncle, to where the water met the horizon.

Even there, he’d hear them, sibilant whispers that would rise like the tide against his mind’s shores, clever fingers of doubt that would undo his mind’s tapestry a single thread at a time.

_They knew. They knew. They knew. This whole time. Your potential. Your power. Your legacy. And still they hid it from you. It is your destiny. You cannot deny it. Come to me. Come to me._

Bewitching words that spoke of truth, perverted and twisted though it was. Guiding him away from the light, from the inexorable pull to a mantle too heavy to bear.

_They will ruin you. Destroy you. Deceive you. Hurt you._

Louder, a crashing chorus of doubt, eclipsing his panting breath as his hands sought purchase in his hair and yanked, hard and fast, to get it to stop.

All along the horizon, the ocean screamed her fury. Whipping winds that brought the raging tide within mere inches of his soaked boots; frothing water that licked at his calves, his knees, dousing the fire that seemed to scorch his every nerve.

Ben plunged into the surf, thighs groaning against the effort of shoving through the water, his sopping robes a sodden weight as he staggered onward.

The first wave crested his chest, an icy, immobile hand that squeezed his throat, obscured his eyes.

Rendered him silent. He fell below the waterline, easy as tumbling into bed.

In the maelstrom of panic, there were no whispers. No voices. Just the roaring pulse of the ocean, the infinite, frigid grip of the water. The pulse of his heart in his ears. The burn of his breath in his lungs.

Ben broke the ocean’s surface and gasped.

Black, all around. No beginning, no end. No shoreline. No stars in the sky.

A second wave pummeled his back.

Salt. Pure white; an impossibly bright starburst against his tongue. Behind his eyes. Racing along pathways of muscles frozen from the cold, burning from exertion. He swallowed, choking, a mouthful of water corroding the tender lining of his lungs.

Ben opened his mouth and  _screamed._

The ocean swallowed the sound whole.

He doesn’t remember how he made it back to the shore. Doesn’t recall the frantic search party of deputized padawans; the guilty looks on their faces when asked if they knew of anything, anyone, who would cause Ben to simply walk into the ocean at night.

He never saw the look of horror on his uncle’s face when he discovered his nephew’s battered body, barely breathing, washed up on the shore, skin pale and grey as the endless stretch of sand. In his clenched fists, they found smooth, twisted glass; the sand warped and melted and molded to his form. Along the shoreline, near where he lie, were hundreds of dead fish, eyes glassy, blood seeping from their gills.

He saw none of it. Heard none of it. Remembered none of it. Ben Solo only knew peaceful, blessed silence for the first time in an age. Despite their fervent warnings, he returned to the ocean nightly, listening to her endless song, sitting in solitude until the waves overtook the whispers and he felt whole for a few blessed hours.

The years dissolved like quicksand after that. In some ways, Kylo knew, Ben Solo drowned that night. Swept out to sea never to return. They began questioning his silence; his flashes of rage that increased in both frequency and intensity.

 _Dangerous,_  they whispered.  _Twisted._ And, in the darkest, most private holochambers, a single word:

_Vader._

Three years to the day that he plunged into the surf, the Jedi Academy fell. Buildings burned; bodies broken as the rain washed away the blood.

As he stood at the edge of the cliffs, the newly-christened Kylo Ren watched the waves crash against the shore. The pyres of the fallen reflected the water, gilding it in fiery light.

The whispers grew to a single, concerted scream. This time, they would not be silenced.

–

Alone, on the Finalizer, more than a decade later, he still hears them. Muted now, as much a part of him as the beat of his heart, the steady breath in his lungs. On the best days, he can control them. Seek a strange sort of comfort in their presence. On the worst days, like today, they press at his consciousness like sliding duracrete walls, boxing him into a room that gets smaller and smaller with every thud of his pulse.

_Failure. Failure. Failure._

His jaw clenches. His lungs burn.

Standing suddenly, Kylo Ren strides toward the launch bay, footsteps drowning out the sounds of the people in his path; their discordant voices unbearably grating. Fright. Anger. Mistrust. And most damning of all, pity.

His fingers clench into fists as he readies his ship for takeoff, calmly cutting through the comms console with a single, efficient swipe of his lightsaber.

He takes off in a single, searing rush; pushing the ship far beyond its formidable capabilities before slamming it into hyperspace.

He breathes in measured time, mouth ajar, shoulders hunched. Still, in silence, he hears them. He closes his eyes and dreams of salt.

–

Nearly three day-cycles pass before the thin blue lines condense and the planet below him jumps into sharp relief. It’s been abandoned now for years, since the fall of the Jedi and the mysterious disappearance of his un…Luke Skywalker.

Kylo looks down through the viewport to the endless blanket of gray-blue. Disengaging the autopilot, he lands the ship efficiently, putting her down in the grand expanse of land where a great battle once raged. Where bleached-white bones remain long picked-clean, blending into a grassy marsh where the dead once lay.

The planet is eerily, unequivocally silent. Long gone are the birds that would cry out in the morning, beckoning him to forms-training on the mountaintop. The skitter-pop sounds of the insects and rodents no longer beat rhythm; the baying cries of the predator dogs missing; a gaping tear the land’s fabric. Life, eclipsed and extinguished, leaving white noise in its wake.

Kylo unclenches his hands.

His boots against the gangway pound unnaturally loud, leaving a jarring echo of metal-on-metal that amplifies and bounces off the ship’s overhang. When he meets grass for the first time in an age, his knees nearly buckle.

The ground is dense; sopping wet; oppressive moisture that soaks through his clothing in mere minutes. He discards his cape, his boots, his gloves, walking barefoot through toward the rocks of the ruined temple.

As he approaches, he hears it: a mournful lullaby, as clear and as sweet as his oldest memory, as welcome as an old friend:

The ocean.

Gone is her rage, her untamable fury. She is docile today, lapping sweetly at the rocks beyond the ruin, whispering to him in a voice he’s never forgotten:

_Come home. Come home. Come home._

The horizon looks different in daylight, an ethereal blue no man-made color could ever match. A carpet of grey sand stretches to the edges of the earth, touching the line where the ocean meets the sky.

Kylo sighs. Sinks into the sand. Clenches his fingers, cool and wet, into the shore. Buries his toes into the surf. Listens to himself breathe.

The whispers are finally, blissfully silent.

On his lips, he tastes salt.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on Tumblr: @checktheholonet


End file.
